The Damnation Game Part 43

h.e.l.l is reimagined by each generation. Its terrain is surveyed for absurdities and remade in a fresher mold; its terrors are scrutinized and, if necessary, reinvented to suit the current climate of atrocity; its architecture is redesigned to appall the eye of the modern d.a.m.ned. In an earlier age Pandemonium-the first city of h.e.l.l-stood on a lava mountain while lightning tore the clouds above it and beacons burned on its walls to summon the fallen angels. Now, such spectacle belongs to Hollywood. h.e.l.l stands transposed. No lightning, no pits of fire.

In a wasteland a few hundred yards from a highway overpa.s.s it finds a new incarnation: shabby, degenerate, forsaken. But here, where fumes thicken the atmosphere, minor terrors take on a new brutality. Heaven, by night, would have all the configurations of h.e.l.l. No less the Orpheus-hereafter called Pandemonium-Hotel.

It had once been an impressive building, and could have been again if its owners had been willing to invest in it. But the task of rebuilding and refurbis.h.i.+ng such a large and old-fas.h.i.+oned hotel was probably financially unsound. Sometime in its past a fire had raged through the place, gutting the first, second and third floors before being extinguished. The fourth floor, and those above, were smoke-spoiled, leaving only the vaguest signs of the hotel's former glamor intact.

The vagaries of the city planning department had taken a further toll on the building's chances of restoration. As Halifax had described, the land to either side of the hotel had been cleared for some projected redevelopment. None had been undertaken, however. The hotel stood in splendid isolation, mated about with feed roads to and from the Ml, no more than three hundred yards from one of the busiest stretches of concrete and tarmac in the south of England. Thousands of drivers glanced its way every day, but its shabby grandeur was by now so familiar they probably scarcely registered its existence. Clever, Marty thought, to hide in such plain sight.

He parked the car as close to the hotel as he could, then slipped in through a hole in the corrugated iron fencing around the plot, and picked his way across the wasteland. The instructions on the fence-"No Trespa.s.sing" and "No Dumping"-had been conspicuously ignored. Black plastic bags, bulging with rubbish, were piled in heaps among the rubble and the old bonfires. Many of the bags had been torn open by children or dogs. Domestic and manufacturing trash spilled out: hundreds of sc.r.a.ps of cloth-sweatshop offcuts-were scattered underfoot; rotting food, the ubiquitous tin can, cus.h.i.+ons, lampshades and car engines-all abandoned on a bed of rubble dust and gray gra.s.s.

Some of the dogs-wild, Marty guessed-looked up from their scavenging as he advanced, their pale flanks dirty, their eyes yellow in the twilight. He thought of Bella and her gleaming family: these curs hardly seemed of the same species. When he looked their way they hung their heads and watched him indirectly, like inept spies.

He went up to the main entrance of the hotel: the word ORPHEUS was still clearly carved above the door; there were mock-Doric columns to either side of the steps, and fancy tilework on the threshold. But the door itself had boards nailed across it, and notices warned of swift prosecution if anyone trespa.s.sed. There seemed little chance of that. The second-, third- and fourth-story windows were boarded up with the same thoroughness as the door; those on the first floor had been bricked up entirely. There was a door at the back of the building that was not boarded up, but it was bolted from the inside. This was probably where Halifax had entered the building: but Whitehead must have given him access. Without breaking and entering, there was no way in.

It was only on his second orbit of the hotel that he gave some serious consideration to the fire escape. It zigzagged up the east side of. the building, an impressive piece of wrought-iron work that was now rusting badly. Further mutilation had been done to it by some enterprising salvage firm, that, seeing profit in the sc.r.a.p metal, had started to cut the escape away from the wall, only to give up on the job when it had reached the second floor. This left the bottom flight missing, the escape's truncated tail hanging ten or eleven feet from the ground. Marty studied the problem. The fire-exit doors on most of the stories had been nailed up; but one, on the fourth story, showed signs of tampering. Was this how the old man had gained entrance? He would have needed help, presumably: Luther, perhaps.

Marty scanned the wall beneath the fire escape. It was graffiti-strewn, but smooth. There was no chance of a handhold or foothold to get him up the first few feet and onto the steps themselves. He turned to the wasteland, looking for inspiration, and a few minutes' search in the deepening dusk revealed a pile of discarded furniture, among it a table, three-legged, but serviceable. He hauled it back to the fire escape and then wedged a collection of refuse bags beneath it in lieu of its missing limb. It made an unsteady perch when he climbed up onto it, and even then his fingers missed the bottom of the escape. He was obliged to jump for a handhold, and on the fourth attempt he achieved one, leaving him swinging at arm's length from the bottom step. A drizzle of rust scales. .h.i.t his face and hair. The escape creaked. He mustered his will and hauled himself up a vital few inches, then struck out with his left hand for a hold on a higher stair. His shoulder joints complained, but he pulled on upward, hand over hand, until he could lift his leg high enough to hoist his whole body onto the steps.

The first stage achieved, he stood on the escape and caught his breath, then started up. The structure was by no means stable; the salvage crew had obviously been at work loosening it from the wall. Every step he took, a grating squeal seemed to presage its capitulation.

"Hold on," he whispered to it, mounting the steps with as light a tread as he could. His efforts were rewarded on the fourth story. As he guessed, the door had been opened quite recently, and with no small sense of relief he stepped from the dubious safety of the fire escape and into the hotel itself.

It still stank of the conflagration that had defeated it: the bitter smell of burned wood and charred carpeting. Below him he could see-by the meager light through the open fire door-the gutted floors. The walls were scorched, the paint on the banisters diseased with blisters. But just a few steps up from here the fire's progress had been arrested.

Marty started up the stairs to the fifth story. A long corridor presented itself to him, with rooms to right and left. He wandered down the pa.s.sageway taking a perfunctory look into each of the suites as he pa.s.sed. The numbered doors let onto empty s.p.a.ces: all the furniture and fittings that were salvageable had been removed years ago.

Perhaps because of its isolated position, and the difficulty of entering, the building had not been squatted or vandalized. The rooms were almost absurdly clean, their deep-pile beige carpets-too bothersome to remove, apparently-springy as cliff turf beneath his feet. He checked every suite on the fifth floor before retracing his path to the stairs and going up another flight. The scene was the same here, although the suites-which had perhaps once commanded a salable view-were larger and fewer on this floor, the carpets, if anything, lusher. It was bizarre, ascending from the charred depths of the hotel to this pristine, breathless place. People had perhaps died in the blindfold corridors below, asphyxiated or baked to death in their dressing gowns. But up here no trace of the tragedy had intruded.

There was one floor left to investigate. As he climbed the final flight of stairs the illumination suddenly strengthened until it was almost as bright as day. The source was highway light, finding its way through the skylights and ineptly sealed windows. He explored the labyrinthine system of rooms as quickly as possible, pausing only to glance out of the window. Far below, he could see the car parked beyond the fence; the dogs engaged in a ma.s.s rape. In the second suite he suddenly caught sight of somebody watching him across the vast reception room only to realize that the haggard face was his own, reflected in a wall-sized mirror.

The door of the third suite, on this final floor, was locked, the first locked suite Marty had encountered. Proof positive, if any were needed, that it had an occupant.

Jubilant, Marty rapped on the door. "h.e.l.lo? Mr. Whitehead?" There was no answering movement from within. He rapped again, harder, casing the door as he did so to see if a break-in was plausible, but it looked too solid to be easily shouldered down. If necessary, he'd have to go back to the car and get some tools.

"It's Strauss, Mr. Whitehead. It's Marty Strauss. I know you're in there. Answer me." He listened. When there was no reply, he beat on the door a third time, this time with fist instead of knuckles. And suddenly the reply came, shockingly close. The old man was standing just the other side of the door; had been all along probably.

"Go to h.e.l.l," the voice said. It was a little slurred, but unmistakably that of Whitehead.

"I have to speak to you," Marty replied. "Let me in."

"How the f.u.c.k did you find me?" Whitehead demanded. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"I made some inquiries, that's all. If I can find you, anybody can."

"Not if you keep your wretched mouth shut. You want money, is that it? Come here for money, have you?"

"No."

"You can have it. I'll get it to you, however much you want."

"I don't want money."

"Then you're a d.a.m.n fool," Whitehead said, and he laughed to himself; a witless, ragged t.i.tter. The man was drunk.

"Mamoulian's on to you," Marty said. "He knows you're alive."

The laughing stopped.

"How?"

"Carys."

"You've seen her?"

"Yes. She's safe."

"Well . . . I underestimated you." He paused; there was a soft sound, as if he was leaning against the door. After a while he spoke again. He sounded exhausted.

"What did you come for, if not for money? She's got some expensive habits, you know."

"No thanks to you."

"I'm sure you'll find it as convenient as I did, given time. She'll bend over backward for a fix."

"You're filth, you know that?"

"But you came to warn me anyway." The old man leaped on the paradox with lightning speed, quick as ever to open a hole in a man's flank. "Poor Marty . . ." the slurred voice trailed away, smothered by mock pity. Then, razor-sharp: "How did you find me?"

"The strawberries."

What sounded like m.u.f.fled choking came from within the suite, but it was Whitehead laughing again, this time at himself. It took several moments for him to regain his composure. "Strawberries . . ." he murmured. "My! You must be persuasive. Did you break his arms?"

"No. He volunteered the information. He didn't want to see you curl up and die."

"I'm not going to die!" the old man -snapped. "Mamoulian's the one who'll die. You'll see. He's running out of time. All I have to do is wait. Here's as good a place as any. I'm very comfortable. Except for Carys. I miss her. Why don't you send her to me, Marty? Now that would be most welcome."

"You'll never see her again."

Whitehead sighed. "Oh, yes," he said, "she'll be back when she's tired of you. When she needs someone who really appreciates her stony heart. You'll see. Well . . . thank you for calling. Goodnight, Marty."

"Wait."

"I said goodnight."

". . . I've got questions . . ." Marty began.

"Questions, questions . . ." the voice was already receding. Marty pressed closer to the door to offer his final sliver of bait. "We found out who the European is; what he is!" But there was no reply. He'd lost Whitehead's attention. It was fruitless anyway, he knew. There was no wisdom to be got here; just a drunken old man replaying his old power games. Somewhere deep inside the penthouse suite a door closed. All contact between the two men was summarily severed.

Marty descended the two flights of stairs back to the open fire door, and left the building by the route he'd entered. After the smell of dead fire inside, even the highway-tainted air smelled light and new.

He stood for several minutes on the escape and watched the traffic pa.s.sing along the highway, his attention pleasantly diverted by the spectacle of lane-hopping commuters. Below, two dogs fought among the refuse, bored with rape. None of them cared, drivers or dogs, about the fall of potentates: why should he? Whitehead, like the hotel, was a lost cause. He'd done his best to salvage the old man and failed. Now he and Carys would slip away into a new life, and let Whitehead make whatever arrangements for cessation he chose. Let him slit his wrists in a stupor of remorse, or choke on vomit in his sleep: Marty was past caring.

He climbed down the escape and scrambled onto the table, then crossed the wasteland to the car, glancing back only once to see if Whitehead was watching. Needless to say, the upper windows were blank.

68

When they got to Caliban Street the girl was still so high on her delayed fix it was difficult to communicate through her chemically elated senses. The European left the evangelists to do the cleaning up and burning he'd instructed Breer to do, and escorted Carys to the room on the top floor. There he set about persuading her to find her father, and quickly. At first the drug in her just smiled at him. His frustration began to curdle into anger. When she started to laugh at his threats-that slow, rootless laughter that was so like the pilgrim's laugh, as if she knew some joke about him that she wasn't telling-his control snapped and he unleashed a nightmare of such unrestrained viciousness upon her its crudity disgusted him almost as much as it terrorized her.She watched in disbelief as the same tide of muck that he'd conjured in the bathroom dribbled and then gushed from her own body. "Take it away," she told him, but he only increased the pitch of the illusion, until her lap squirmed with monstrosities. Abruptly, her drug bubble burst. A gleam of insanity crept into her eyes as she cowered in the corner of the room, while the things came from her every orifice, struggling to work their way out, then clinging to her with whatever limbs his invention had supplied. She was within a hairbreadth of madness, but he'd gone too far to withdraw the a.s.sault now, repelled though he was by its depravity.

"Find the pilgrim," he told her, "and all this vanishes."

"Yes, yes, yes," she pleaded, "whatever you want."

He stood and watched while she obeyed his demands, flinging herself into that same fugue state she'd achieved when pursuing Toy. It took her longer to find the pilgrim, however, so long that the European began to suspect she'd canceled all link with her body, and left it to his devices rather than reenter it. But she finally returned. She had found him at a hotel no less than half an hour's drive from Caliban Street. Mamoulian was not surprised. It was not in the nature of foxes to travel far from their natural habitat; Whitehead had simply gone to ground.

Wrung out by the journey and the fear that had propelled her, Carys was half-carried down the stairs by Chad and Tom and out to the waiting car. The European made one farewell circuit of the house, to see that any sign of his presence there had been removed. The girl in the cellar, and Breer's detritus, could not be cleared at such short notice, but that was a nicety. Let those who came after construe what they liked from the atrocity photographs on the wall and the bottles of perfume so lovingly arranged. All that mattered was that evidence of his, the European's, existence here-or indeed anywhere-be thoroughly effaced. Soon he would be rumor again; gossip among the haunted people.

"Time to go," he said as he locked the door. "The Deluge is almost upon us."Now, as they drove, Carys was beginning to find some strength. Balmy air through the front window caressed her face. She opened her eyes fractionally, and cast them in the direction of the European. He was not looking her way; he was staring out of the window, that aristocratic profile of his made blander than ever by fatigue.

She wondered how her father would fare in the approaching endgame. He was old, but Mamoulian was vastly older; was age, in this confrontation, an advantage or a disadvantage? Suppose-the thought occurred to her for the first time-they were equally matched? Suppose the game they were playing ended without defeat or victory on either side? Just a twentieth-century conclusion-all ambiguities. She didn't want that: she wanted finality.

Whichever way it went she knew there was small chance of her survival in the coming Deluge. Only Marty could tip the balance in her favor, and where was he now? If he returned to Kilburn and found it deserted, mightn't he a.s.sume she'd left him of her own accord? She couldn't predict the way he'd jump; that he was capable of the blackmail with the heroin had come as a shock. One desperate maneuver remained a possibility: to think her way to him and tell him where she was, and why. There were risks in such a gambit. Catching stray thoughts from him was one thing-it was no more than a parlor trick-but attempting to push her way into his head and communicate with him consciously, mind to mind, would require more mental muscle. Even a.s.suming she had the strength to do it, what would the consequences of such an intrusion be for Marty? She pondered the dilemma in a daze of anxiety, knowing the minutes were ticking by, and soon it would be too late for any escape attempt, however desperate.Marty was driving south toward Cricklewood when a pain began at the nape of his neck. It spread rapidly up and over his skull, escalating within two minutes to a headache of unparalleled proportions. His instinct was to pick up speed and get back to Kilburn as quickly as possible, but the Finchley Road was heavily trafficked, and all he could do was edge along with the flow, the pain worsening every ten yards. His consciousness-increasingly preoccupied with the upward spiral of pain-focused on smaller and yet smaller bits of information, his perception narrowing to a pinp.r.i.c.k. Ahead of the Citroen the road was a blur. He was almost blinded, and a collision with a refrigerated meat truck was only prevented by the skill of the other driver. He realized that driving any further could be fatal, so he edged out of the traffic as best he could-horns blaring front and behind-and parked, inelegantly, at the side of the road, then stumbled out of the car to get some air. Completely disoriented, he stepped straight into the middle of the traffic. The lights of the oncoming vehicles were a wall of strobing colors. He felt his knees about to buckle and only prevented himself from collapsing in front of the traffic by hanging on to the open car door and hauling himself around the front of the Citroen to the comparative safety of the pavement.

A single drop of rain fell on his hand. He peered at it, concentrating to bring it into focus. It was bright red. Blood, he thought dimly. Not rain, blood. He put his hand up to his face. His nose was bleeding copiously. The heat ran down his arm and into the rolled sleeve of his s.h.i.+rt. Digging into his pocket he pulled out a handkerchief and clamped it under his nose, then staggered across the pavement to a shopfront. In the window, he caught his reflection. Fish swam behind his eyes. He fought the illusion, but it persisted: brilliantly colored exotica, blowing bubbles inside his skull. He stood away from the gla.s.s, and took in the words painted on it: Cricklewood Aquarium Supplies. He turned his back on the guppies and the ornamental carp and sat on the narrow sill. He had begun to shake. This was Mamoulian's doing, was all he could think. If I give into it, I'll die. I must fight. At all costs, fight.Carys spoke, the word escaping her lips before she could prevent it.

"Marty."

The European looked at her. Was she dreaming? There was sweat on her swollen lips; yes, she was. Of congress with Strauss, no doubt. That was why she spoke his name with such demand in her tone.

"Marty."

Yes, for certain, she was dreaming the arrow and the wound. Look how she trembled. Look how her hands ran between her legs: a shameful display.

"How far now?" he asked Saint Tom, who was consulting the map "Five minutes," the youth replied.

"Fine night for it," Chad said.Marty?

He looked up, narrowing his eyes to improve his vision of the street, but he could not see his interrogator. The voice was in his head.

Marty?

It was Carys' voice, horribly distorted. When it spoke his skull seemed to creak, his brain blowing up to the size of a melon. The pain was unbearable.

Marty?

Shut up, he wanted to say, but she wasn't there to tell. Besides, it wasn't her, it was him, it, the European. The voice was now replaced by the sound of somebody's breath, not his own. His was a sickening pant, this was a sleepy rhythm. The blur of the street was darkening; the ache in his head had become heaven and earth. He knew if he didn't get help, he'd die.

He stood up, blind. A hissing had filled his ears now, which all but blocked the din of traffic mere yards from him. He stumbled forward. More blood streamed from his nose.

"Somebody help me. . ."

An anonymous voice filtered through the chaos in his head. The words it spoke were incomprehensible to him, but at least he was not alone. A hand was touching his chest; another was holding his arm. The voice he'd heard vas raised in panic. He wasn't sure if he made any reply to it. He wasn't even sure if he was standing up or falling down. What did it matter anyway?

Blind and deaf, he waited for some kind person to tell him he could die.They drew up in the street a short way from the Orpheus Hotel. Mamoulian got out and left the evangelists to bring Carys. She'd begun to smell, he'd noted; that ripe smell he a.s.sociated with menstruation. He strode on ahead, stepping through the rent fence and onto the no-man's-land that surrounded the hotel. Desolation pleased him. The heaps of rubble, the piles of abandoned furniture: by the sickly light of the highway the place had a glamor about it. If last rites were to be performed, what better place than here? The pilgrim had chosen well.

"This is it?" said Saint Chad, following on.

"It is. Will you find a point of access for us?"

"My pleasure."

"Only do it quietly, if you will."

The young man skipped off across the pit-fraught ground, stopping only to select a piece of twisted metal from among the rubble to force an entry. So resourceful, these Americans, Mamoulian mused as he picked his way after Chad: no wonder they ruled the world. Resourceful, but not subtle. At the front door Chad was tearing the planks away without much regard for surprise attacks. Can you hear? he thought to the pilgrim. Do you know I'm down here, so close to you at last?

He turned his cold eyes up to the top of the hotel. His belly was acid with antic.i.p.ation; a film of sweat glossed his forehead and palms. I'm like a nervous lover, he thought. So strange, that the romance should end this way, without a sane observer to witness the final acts. Who would know, once it was all over; who would tell? Not the Americans. They would not survive the next few hours with the tatters of their sanity intact. Not Carys; she would not survive at all. There would be n.o.body to report the story, which-for some buried reason-he regretted. Was that what made him a European? To want to have his story told once more, pa.s.sed down the line to another eager listener who would, in his time, disregard its lesson and repeat his own suffering? Ah, how he loved tradition.

The front door had been beaten open. Saint Chad stood, grinning at his achievement, sweating in his tie and suit.

"Lead the way," Mamoulian invited him.

The eager youth went inside; the European followed. Carys and Saint Tom brought up the rear.

Within, the smell was tantalizing. a.s.sociations were one of the curses of age. In this case the perfume of carbonized wood, and the sprawl of wreckage underfoot, evoked a dozen cities he'd wandered in; but one of course, in particular. Was that why Joseph had come to this spot: because the scent of smoke and the climb up the creaking stairs woke memories of that room off Muranowski Square? The thief's skills had been the equal of his own that night, hadn't they? There'd been something blessed about the young man with the glittering eyes; the fox who'd shown so little awe; just sat down at the table willing to risk his life in order to play. Mamoulian believed the pilgrim had forgotten Warsaw as he'd grown from fortune to fortune; but this ascent up burned stairs was proof positive that he had not.

They climbed in the dark, Saint Chad going ahead to scout the way, and calling behind him that the banister was gone in this place and a stair in that. Between the fourth and fifth stories, where the fire stopped, Mamoulian called a halt, and waited until Carys and Tom caught up. When they had he instructed that the girl be brought to him. It was lighter up here. Mamoulian could see a look of loss on the girl's tender face. He touched her, not liking the contact but feeling it appropriate.

"Your father is here," he told her. She didn't reply; nor did her features relinquish the look of grief. "Carys . . . are you listening?"

She blinked. He a.s.sumed he was making some contact with her, if primitive.

"I want you to speak to Papa. Do you understand? I want you to tell him to open the door for me."

Gently, she shook her head.

"Carys," he chided. "You know better than to refuse me."

"He's dead," she said.

"No," the European replied flatly, "He's up there; a few flights above us."

"I killed him."